Russ Warren: New Paintings and Sculpture

Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to present Russ Warren: Paintings and Sculpture from August 25 through October 1 2017.  Although best known for his paintings, Russ Warren has also made sculpture intermittently since 1971. He returned to this medium in earnest after seeing the galvanizing Picasso Sculpture show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in late 2015. The show at LYdM will focus on his art in both mediums and in literal communication with one another. A veteran of the art world, having shown with major galleries in New York and Chicago and in important museum exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad since the 1970s, Warren has always been fascinated by the dynamics of art exhibitions and what happens to art when it moves from a studio to an exhibition space.  He writes “You live in the studio with your paintings and work and rework them until you find confidence to show them to the world. You think you know them inside and out. Then the opening happens and suddenly you see your paintings like you never have seen them before.” To highlight the strange psychological experience that happens between the viewer and the painting, and by extension between the artist as viewer watching this interaction, Warren will interject his own surrogate viewers into the mix. They take the shape of humorous headless figures created in wood, chicken wire and plaster and painted in layers of undecipherable words, formulas and numbers. They are wildly gesticulating or calmly viewing (though with bodies not eyes) the huge diptychs on the wall, composed of overlapping lines of animals, skulls, figures and nature in bold colors and staccato brushwork. The resulting ensembles seem caught in a play of mysterious communion and attempted communication across chasms of this world and the next.

Also on view in the rear gallery will be a selection of Warren’s latest livestock marker paintings, created in acrylic, ink, oil stick, and actual livestock markers used for marking cattle. In these he returns to another favorite subject of his—the bull. In typical Warren fashion, his beasts are far from menacing.